Le Laboratoire de Chimie Organique à I'EIA-FR

Practical Organic Chemistry at the University of Applied Science at Fribourg

Abstract

We describe some aspects of practical organic chemistry at the EIA-FR. To motivate the students, we let them carry out their laboratory work like research projects in synthetic organic chemistry. To provide some guide lines, we propose the following general reaction scheme: 2,6-di-(hydroxymethyl)-phenols are prepared and, after dehydration, brought to reaction with nucleophiles such as alcohols or activated aromatics. Within this reaction scheme, students start with the Reissert reaction to prepare substituted indols, which they will then try to connect to the 2,6-di-(hydroxymethyl)-phenols by substitution of the hydroxyl part.
During this practical work we hope the students will learn how to observe, how to analyse and how to understand organic reactions. Furthermore we hope that through this kind of continued laboratory projects, the students will get a realistic impression of the facinating work of a synthetic organic chemist.